During slavery, owning slaves was not merely a status symbol, but an ideal for most southern white men. Slaves allowed white men to move up on the social hierarchy. The more slaves one owned, the more power and status one had. Owning slaves during that time can be equated to the amount of cars or vacation houses someone owns today. This, however, is more than just a game of who can collect the most slaves—for them it was the American Dream. Owning slaves is what non-slaveholders aspired to do, which according to Johnson is why they continued to support the system of slavery, even though they were not an active participant in it (80). Furthermore, it was what was expected of white southern men. Households that did not consist of at least one slave made white slaveholding southerners uncomfortable. It was the ideal for slaves to exist in each household and it was assumed by many slaveholders that eventually those households without slaves were just waiting for their finances to work out so that they would be able to purchase a slave (90). Ownership of slaves was the defining characteristic of a decent, respectable home in the south; in Johnson’s words, slaves were necessary “to make a white household white (90).” No respectable man would decide to have his wife and children labor in the fields or in the house. In order to truly be a white man, you had to own a slave to do all the work for you and your family.
In Soul by Soul, Johnson argued that slaveholders formed their identities based on their ownership of slaves, which makes sense given that the economic and social aspirations of white southerners revolved around the acquisition of slaves. Slavery was not just an economic system, it was a lifestyle that determined all aspects (political and social) of one’s life. Without slaves, white southerners had no concept of who they were. They based their identity on the slaves they owned (or could potentially own) as well as what those slaves could do for them. Slaves, in other words were an essential part of who slaveholders considered themselves to be or who they thought they could become. With identities that are predicated on owning and controlling slaves, it is not surprising that white southerners had a difficult time dealing with the new social order after emancipation.
If you look at owning slaves as the American Dream in the South at the time, it is not surprising that there was a breakdown in the identities of white southern men during Reconstruction. In addition to trying to figure out what freedom would mean for themselves and free blacks, they also had to rethink what it meant to be a white southern male, and how losing slavery as a measure of statuses would affect the southern social hierarchy. While this is of course not to say that the struggle to create an identity among free blacks is not important, I think that it would be interesting to explore the recreation of white identities and how this impacted/fueled the racial tensions after slaves were emancipated. What role do you think this “loss” of the “American Dream” played in post slavery racial relations?
I agree that our readings have not much reflected the experiences of whites during reconstruction. I also agree that the loss of the American Dream impactedpost-slavery relations. But I think you may answer your own questions in that you mention all the ways in which slavery was the basis of southern white family's economic and financial stability, in addition to social aspects. Because the financial stability of many white families relied on slavery, the ending of slavery must have had a huge impact on their businesses and industries. Perhaps the restructuring the social life of white people began with the restructuring of their industries. The difficulties that African Americans faced entering the job market was a struggle also experienced, though with less potency, by whites from the north, immigrants from places such as Ireland, and Southern white people who had been poor even before the war. That is not even to mention Southern whites made rich and powerful through slavery, now having had their means of power and wealth removed from them. These struggling whites blamed much of their struggle on the freed African Americans. Together, groups of angry and entitled whites represented the Democratic Party as it existed in the South. They created and supported laws that reinforced racism and undid many of the freedoms of emancipation. As we begin to read about the Jim Crow laws, we will see the results of white racism, entitlement, and anger.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Aubrey in that the freedom of slaves must have had a huge impact on the financial stability of white Southerners. Their ideal lifestyle required slaves to do all of the manual labor in the fields. However because the freed black people still need to earn wages, labor was still readily available. Until the system of sharecropping was developed, white landowners simply had to pay a little out of their pocket. But the pay was never a fair wage. And when sharecropping and black codes were enacted that pay was even less.
ReplyDeleteThe emancipation of slaves also affected the lifestyle of white southerners in that they no longer had their house slaves. With servants and nurses around the house, women had the time to engage in social functions and present themselves as ideal women. Once the slaves were freed, those women were faced with the responsibility of running their own home and tending to their own children. But I am sure that if their financial situation allowed, they did not hesitate in hiring help.
One of the issues with sharecropping was that the wages that many of the slaves were receiving were below what it would take to support their families. During class, we talked about how slaves had a certain amount of mobility during the reconstruction era in that that they could move from the plantation to plantation to try to receive the highest wage. During slavery, much of the necessities were taken care of by the master. Slaves had food and shelter and did not have to worry about when their next meal was or where they would have to sleep. After the civil war, the initiation of the black codes made it possible for white southerners to make their slaves wage poor. Blacks were living off almost nothing and many slaves died in the process. I am in no way supporting the institution of slavery, but the immediate aftermath of the beginning of sharecropping had incredibly negative effects on the slave population.
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